Moms-to-be, Get Moving!

“Increasing evidence shows that maternal obesity and excessive gestational weight gain are associated, through intrauterine exposure, with increased risk of childhood obesity”, was the opener in an article this week in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Bulletin.

Nature?

Or nurture?

Look- does it really matter?

If a mother-to-be has poor eating habits and is sedentary, chances are high that her children will learn to eat and (not) move the same way so of course they’re more likely to be fat and unhealthy.

Perhaps if you’ve never been successful in the past with permanent and safe weight loss, the event of bringing a child into the world and having their whole lives ahead of you to choose to set good (or bad) examples might be that impetus you needed to finally get you on the right path.

A classmate of mine from my undergrad study, who’d always struggled with his weight found that once he began his career as a school teacher to young kids in a particularly tough neighborhood (in a school which had cut their PE programs, by the way), he needed to be healthy. Immediately. He had just completed his Masters of Education and was a talented, kind man…and he had always been fifty to one hundred pounds over weight. He stood in front of his class on day one and said he felt like an absolute hypocrite when he wanted to address what the kids were eating for lunch and what activities they engage in away from school.

That same afternoon, he did not head for fries and a milkshake but he did walk one mile.

You get the idea; he got healthy and as the saying goes, ‘became the change he wanted to see’.

So?

Move it!

Doesn’t matter what you do, or when or how or where.

We’re made to move. Not be still.

As such, I just had to post this old Adidas advert…which pretty much says it all.